Patrick Howley

The uncle of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects said that his nephews’ suspected involvement in the terrorist attack stemmed from their “being losers,” and that any link between their actions and their reported Muslim faith is “a fake.”

“Being losers,” Ruslan Tsarni, the uncle of bombing suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, said in a press conference outside his Maryland home Friday when asked what motivated his nephews to carry out the bombings.

“Hatred of those who have been able to settle themselves,” explained Tsarni, who said he has not been in contact with the Tsarnaev brothers for years. “These are the only reasons I can imagine of.”

“Anything having to do with religion, with Islam, is a fraud, is a fake,” Tsarni said, in regard to reports that his nephews’ Muslim religion may have motivated them. Tsarni said that his nephews never expressed any hatred toward America.

He later encouraged Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to turn himself in and ask for forgiveness, before asking those reporters near his residence to give him privacy.